This could turn into dungeon material real quick so I'm putting it in here. New distance record from a Canadian Sniper, this converts to 3,871 yards. That's crazy. Most calibers would bounce off you if they even made it that far. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/new...ill-shot-in-iraq/article35415651/?service=amp
Taking a lot of assumptions for Iraq this time of year, if he used the standard 750gr AMAX, McMillan recommends, that bullet had about 730 feet of drop, depending on the azimuth he shot from there would have been nearly a foot of drop from the coriolis effect alone.
If the hornady amax was used. The bullet would be traveling around 900fps. With muzzle energy somewhere close to what a 5.56 round has at the muzzle.
There's so many things that boggle my mind about this. For one thing, I looked up the TAC-50, because I didn't know much about it. Operating range was listed as 1800 meters? I can understand going a little beyond the range, or even some of the previous shots listed - 2300 meters doesn't sound ridiculously far-fetched in my head. But how does one effectively, accurately, almost double the range of that thing? I mean, how do you determine that shot IS the one to take, knowing what you know about your equipment?
I remember prairie dog hunters making hits out to 2,000 yards and they are way smaller than a person. Yes, i know they don't shoot back.
2.2 miles is a long way away. In addition to everything else, you would need some luck with the wind and visibility to make something like that work. Haze or swirling winds and there is probably no way to even try the shot. If my math is correct, if the wind pushes the bullet off course by 0.1 degrees 1000m out from the barrel you would miss the target by around 4 meters?
What they never mention is how many shots it took to finally make the hit. Something else to think about... Back in 2009 or so Barrett's front page on their website was this huge story on one of their rifles making a 1400 yd headshot. I'm quite familiar with the M107 and thought this was pretty outlandish considering it's a 2 MOA gun on average. I later met the guy who made that shot, at the 10th Int'l Sniper Competition at Ft Benning. He said he was aiming for the engine block.
I'm travelling so I won't have time to calculate this for a while but I think we have reached the limit of what's possible with this shot. I'm also fascinated with the idea that at this distance, there is a chance the target heard the sonic crack before impact. Yes the bullet is travelling subsonic at impact but for how long? The reason is, the sonic boom sound wave is travelling faster than the bullet (at impact), so it catches back up and passes the bullet at some point. So depending on when the bullet dropped below 1125 FPS, it could have been silent or not. This is going to take some time to calculate...wish I had more time right now.